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GOP to Challenge Obama’s Environmental Action

By: Thomas Lodico

Monday morning, President Barack Obama laid out his environmental plan to cut carbon emissions from coal fired power plants, the number one factor of greenhouse causing gases. Power plants produce more carbon emissions than houses, cars and factories combined. As President Obama announced his plan to cut these emissions, Republican state governors and attorney generals, who were prepared for this announcement, have already filed lawsuits to stop such action.

The main Republican plan of attack on such activities would to be to weaken, delay and eventually stop President Obama’s plan on climate change.

The first plan of attack would involve getting a majority of the American people on their side. In states like Kentucky, where coal fired power plants are the number one employer, Republicans plan to taint President Obama’s version of a clean power plant as a job killer. For a nation hit hard from a recession and a state hit even harder, this line of attack could help shift focus from the importance of a healthy and clean environment to government infringement. Yet this would be a slower bureaucratic option, one that would have to go through the court system, with the courts having to first grant a stay on any action and then go through the proper procedure of either allowing or rejecting the law.

The next option would be for President Obama’s successor to scale back or dismantle the law in its entirety. But at this point it’s anyone’s game, Democrat or Republican.

The last option would be Congressional action. With Congress being able to rewrite the rules in favor of the power plants, President Obama could see his environmental legacy go up in smoke.
Whatever happens, something must be done on climate change, yet with Republicans continually denying anything is wrong and Democrats dragging their feet, anything is possible in the near future.